The days are numbered for ZeroSec, once
billed as the number 2 release blog second only to RlsLog.net. The
new
owners had but two avenues
to traverse for the future of the blog: either keep the status quo; or
else tank the site beyond all repair. After a series of blunders which
can only be described as sheer lunacy on the part of the new
proprietors, there’s little doubt that ZeroSec will come to a crashing
halt, and soon. Abandoned by editors, readers and commenters - little
else remains except for a quick death of this once-popular release site.
October 1st, 2009
ZeroSec.ws was listed as ‘for sale’ on Flippa.com on October 1st, 2009 - and just five days later they had solidified a buyer, confirming the transaction. The sale was a private one, so no further details were available. Minimum bids were not disclosed, nor was the asking price, and the final purchase price that was settled on will likely never be known. But on October 6th, ZeroSec had a new owner.
When an owner sells or transfers a high-profile website or domain (such as ZeroSec), it’s reasonable to expect the original owner to agree to assume a degree of responsibility to maintain the site’s operations for a predetermined amount of time (this is often a stipulation within terms agreed upon between both parties as a part of the transaction - consider it a ’smooth’ transition period). Usually this is anywhere from 1-3 months but it all depends on the site, and of course, to the conditions in the agreement.
On January 5th, exactly three months after the sale, ZeroSec was relocated to a new server in the US on different hosting. This is also when ZeroSec’s PreDB stopped indexing new pres.
January 16th, 2010
The new owner began to incorporate an entirely different ad-campaign, most notably a captcha-style malicious advert that asked readers to enter his/her cell-phone number. This ad in particular is completely unacceptable for such a renowned & prolific site such as ZS, and was likely the crux, the true turning point in which ZS had lost all credibility among viewership and staff/editors alike. Readers who fell for it would need to cancel the service not once, but twice, or else were charged $9.95. The SMS numbers are reportedly coming from 94374 and 1111487101.
ZS staff have openly speculated that the main reason for the new owner to purchase ZS was based upon being able to put up this advert in the first place. There’s not much doubt that the new owner would be able to recover most, if not all, of his initial investment based on this one small (but highly profitable) advert alone - and it’s not unreasonable to assume that thousands of readers were tricked. You see, folks; buying ZS had little to do with maintaining a successful release blog - it was all about the money. ZeroSec had embarked on an irreparable downward spiral, and ReeGed saw the writing on the wall.
January 19th, 2010
Some 3½ months after the sale, ReeGed officially announced it on ZeroSec’s forums on January 19th. Although prior to this announcement (in which staff & editors were not informed about previously), there had indeed been plenty of internal speculation. The server move and failing PreDB were clear indicators that something was awry; not to mention the shifty ads. But it all could have been a relatively seamless migration if only the new owners were competent to begin with. Or else had a proper agenda for ZS’s future.
February 12th, 2010
All hell was beginning to break loose. Most of the old editors had already abandoned ship. One editor that remained was sc0rff who made an announcement on ZeroSec’s main page (on February 13th) that the site had been sold - the post was entitled ”Well, it’s been fun…”. This post was removed by the new owner, but can still be viewed here. To this date there is still a 10 day gap of missing posts from 02-12-2010 to 02-22-2010:
February 19th, 2010
However, before editors began their exodus, they decided to delete their own (and each others) previous posts, which numbered in the thousands. For a short period of time, visitors to ZS would notice that the newest article was from July 2009. The new owner had little choice but to do a site rollback to an earlier database (from Feb 2010) thus to be able to reverse all of the deleted posts. Remaining editors were either disabled, or else had their account privileges limited in order to prevent something like this from happening again. On February 20th, ZS successfully used a backup to restore the site, and it was then that the new owner would emerge from the shadows.
February 20th, 2010
After remaining in the background for nearly 5 months with no direct communication to staff (other than with ReeGed prior to his announcement & subsequent removal from ZS), the new owner finally emerged on or about February 20th on ZeroSec’s IRC, long after the problems began to arise.
In this IRC chat, staff vehemently voiced their displeasure towards the direction that ZS was headed. We won’t disclose the transcription of that little chat, but it was clearly the final straw for anyone associated with ZeroSec.
Incompetent ZS Owners…
In the Wordpress backend, ZeroSec has a “Release Box” where new articles are temporarily posted so that editors can ‘grab’ them and commence work. The new owner obviously doesn’t grasp this concept well and assumed ZS had an automated process for posting, and he even attempted to add links directly from RlsLog.net as seen below.
Other examples that pertain to the ZS backend problems can be seen here, here & here.
With no editors, ZS began to copy/paste articles directly from RlsLog with the only discernible difference being the affiliate links in each. Clearly, this is yet another example of how not to run a release blog.
There are no comments in ZS articles at the moment, mostly this can be attributed to a global boycott from editors, viewers and professional uploaders. There are new editors now (all are Indian names, btw), but they don’t actually exist and were created by the new owner (for the purpose of appearing as though they have editors, when they don’t).
Also, we found a very interesting HotFile package that contains 17 screenshots taken from the WP backend of ZeroSec. These are comments that have either been deleted from ZS, or ones that are being held in moderation. Either way, these will never make it to the site publicly:
http://hotfile.com/dl/30336236/29b9d59/comments_edited.rar.html
We suspect we know who the actual owner of ZeroSec is now, as do ex-staff. But the point is a moot one; since ZS is not expected to exist for much longer anyways.
omfg Says:
imo they sold out .. what a pitty i actually liked 0sec .. scnsrc is my new home now
ber Says:
I reckon someone from RlsLog must have bought it up just to kill it off after all those guys jumped ship.
mr.informality Says:
hi all guys
i want join etiv.in
so i need your help if you can.
thanks a lot
sbb Says:
adding links from rslog is very fool.
looks like new owner is high school boy
Bottle Says:
I can almost hear Rlslog’s laughter, ZeroSec had a promising future, now it doesn’t.
Julian Says:
@4
I’m a high school boy, and even I wouldn’t be that stupid rofl!!
It’s a shame to see a nice site go down in flames….
Lenny Says:
What was the new owner thinking? He had gold in his hands but ruined it by using some aggressive model to make money and not contacting and being on good terms with the edtiors. Instead, all he had to do was continue the site as it was going and place ads in a non-intrusive way.
Nutman Says:
Lol my comment saying F you to the new owner is in picture 11.
Rajiv Says:
The new owner is Yocto?
HaDeZz Says:
Zerosec is dead, Long live Scenesource!
J.Rooles Says:
maybe you should give scenedown.org a try.they are sometimes so fast in publishing latest releases.
anon Says:
i am ex-staff. he is probably a kid. he just screwed everything. i wrote 2 last messages after his ridiculous actions in release box. i think he tried to delete those messages and now release box is f*cked up. the idiot edited and screwed the release_box script, lol
davus Says:
The lack of comments isn’t due to some boycott. I tried to add one and it was labeled “awaiting approval from moderator.” So if anyone had anything bad to say about the new owners they certainly won’t be able to do it publicly on the site anymore. I find it funny that the forums are still alive and haven’t been shut down yet.
LOL Says:
LOL nice - my comment is in 9.png in that comment pack.
…and to read the IRC log that sharky didn’t want to post for some reason:
http://p a s t e .s c n s r c .n e t/view/30186967
Meelu Says:
@012
it wasnt a kid who screwed the release box up, i was high and i did it
sc0rff Says:
The Flippa.com listing you linked to was the first one which fell through, this is the one that completed:
http://flippa.com/auctions/79963/Release-Site-and-Forums-450000-Uniques-per-month-and-Dedicated-Userbase
sc0rff Says:
January 19th, 2010: ReeGed’s post wasn’t 3 months after, was 3 days after the sale, he would have done sooner but he had flown half way across the world and just wanted to sleep lol.
February 19th, 2010: Wasn’t old editors, just one who actually left before January.
February 20th, 2010: Wasn’t the new owners, was just an contracted coder, based in India of all places (new owners are based in US).
Incompetent ZS Owners…: oh my poor release box, what have they done to you?
no comments: because all comments are now moderated.
LOL Says:
@ sc0rff
Man it was Meelu who did that to your poor release box, lol
anyone interested in full chat with ZS Admin (asshole )
http://www.pastebin.cz/32992
Thanks to GOOGLE
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Director%2C+Technology+at+GoLive!+Mobile&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
lol
Dimon Says:
01:27:22- http://pre.zerosec.ws/ looks like a list of latest releases
LOL again
actually yes
#
01:33:34- see zsDev, it will take lots of time to understand how things work here, i bet you just leanered yesterday about how to login into an IRC channel
#
01:35:47-
#
01:35:52- lol
#
01:36:02- see i m expert now
#
01:36:03- this is one of the funniest irc’s i’ve read in ages
OMG what an idiot
omfg Says:
hm thx for the irc logs .. pretty lame if you ask me
logs Says:
How old are the ex-staff of zerosec? Those IRC logs make them sound like noob 15-year-olds. Everyone in the logs appear to be children (including zsDev) with ADD.
Useful Says:
Can anyone please reupload the hotfile file I can’t seem to download it.
m Says:
http://www.multiupload.com/T1L0BKPKMG
blackjesus Says:
i was present during that irc convo really i dunno what the new owners are thinking or expected but they come across like r’tards and its a shame cause i liked zerosec
Nigel du compaise Says:
Some 3½ months after the sale, ReeGed officially announced it on ZeroSec’s forums on January 19th. Although prior to this announcement (in which staff & editors were not informed about previously),
^^ What a complete load of rubbish. Editors knew months before the sale that it was going to occur.
Stop making shit up.
bibi4k Says:
has anyone noticed hdchina is open for reg? I’m surprised FSF did not mention that.
Noname Says:
Another worthless article.
Everyone go to filenetworkblogspot for GOOD articles about truly trackers.
Bah, shit
noname Says:
@026: What you expect from this…
Follow 027 and go to FileNetworks.. They are legends compare to the amateur reporter here.
shilpa Says:
zerosec admin,
tumne humare sabhi bhaiyo ko le liya hai, hume bhi lelo.
mujhe, Java, JSP, Servlets, Beans, oracle, SQL ache se aata hai.
mail me:
fgsdgfszdg@spamavert.com
LOL Says:
LOL at the ZeroSec owner. It’s obvious they don’t have any editors now and its just the owner posting under different names each time. No posts for ~5 days, and now 4 posts each by a different “editor” one after the other, 30 mins apart… and all links are stolen from rlslog posts. What a fucking retard.
e.c Says:
1: January 19th, 2010: ReeGed’s post wasn’t 3 months after, was 3 days after the sale, he would have done sooner but he had flown half way across the world and just wanted to sleep lol.
2: February 19th, 2010: Wasn’t old editors, just one who actually left before January.
3: February 20th, 2010: Wasn’t the new owners, was just an contracted coder, based in India of all places (new owners are based in US).
4: Incompetent ZS Owners…: oh my poor release box, what have they done to you?
no comments: because all comments are now moderated.
@ 017 SC0RFF:
1) Yes, his post was 3 month after sale, 3 DAYS after ANNOUNCEMENT. Yeah, it’s so hard to write a post on the plane, and send it on the ground. More incompetence, laziness, total BULL~!!!
2) AT LEAST, 1 EDITOR had the balls!
3) How would YOU even know ?
You have absolutely no idea what was going on past Jan.19, when YOUR OWN post was DELETED from existence. GIMME A BREAK~!!!
4) Go find an internet presence. It is obvious that there IS NO NEW SITE since you would’ve been working it up instead of harping and whining about you and ReeGeed’s excuse after excuse for abandoning this site and it’s patrons.
PISS POOR EXCUSES. PERIOD~!!!
e.c Says:
@ 017 SC0RFF:
It is included right in the auction listing that you gave links for:
The site was listed for sale the 2ND TIME through FLIPPA on DEC.2.
POST was on JAN. 19th.
THAT IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO 3 DAYS AFTER DEC.2. AND THE ORIGINAL SALE was on OCT.1, which is MORE than 3 MONTHS. GET YOUR FRICKEN FACTS STRAIGHT since you OBVIOUSLY can’t manage posts on a site.
WHERE’s the SUPERSITE ~!?!?!
JohnWu Says:
bong-team Says:
ZeroSec
bong-team Says:
ZeroSec!! Born the first italian blog ReleaseLog (ZeroSec.ws) style! On ZeroSec can find information about releases from the Italian scene, link torrent, rapidshare, megaupload, emule etc. .. the blog is excellent, updated, and maintained by guys really want to do!
ZeroSec!! is not dead!
Linda Says:
What a sad story hope they were paid well. Watching your site burn away after a sale isn’t fun.
Anyways I have moved on to torrentavi.com, rlspress.com and scnsrc.net. Good luck to all.
radio star Says:
I always prefered scnsrc over zerosec .
movies you can also find on http://scenerelease.net
for tv shows I visit http://tv-dump.org
Someone Says:
I just love the comments and attitudes expressed by everyone, in particular the ex owners & editors.
As if the new owners owed anyone anything. They wanted the name, they got it, and they can do whatever the hell they want with the site. They waited 3 months, so I’ll assume that was the time specificed in the terms. After that, they don’t owe the former owners and former editors a place to continue running the site as if it was still theirs. They don’t owe the users the same kind of release site it was before. That the ex editors started sabotaging the site by mass article deletings (which could be considered illegal) shows they were just as much a bunch of asshats as the new owners who were just trying to make a quick buck off the ads before all the visiters left.
So as far as all that bitching and whining goes, everyone needs to get over themselves and learn their place. If certain people wanted it to remain a certain way or continue to have a say, then certain people shouldn’t have sold it to begin with. But they did, and what they think no longer matters, since it’s not their concern anymore.
Pr00F Says:
@sc0rff,
Nice to hear from you again, It was a damn shame what happened but fuck him we need to bot this bastard force his traffic else where then buy the site back
rapidshare movie Says:
this is a nice post and very informative
http://www.ldevils.com
sportsgirl Says:
yes i think so ,this is a nice post!
Rayford Ciccone Says:
Interesting information. Better not voice my thoughts here as I am pretty opinionated. It’s essential to possess ideas though.
torrentflux Says:
looks like new owner is high school boy
http://www.rapidleechhosting.net/
Resurrection? Says:
The opportunity for something pure. http://www.zerosec.us